You Built it - But Will They Come?

Most small businesses put a lot of time, thought, and marketing budget into creating a web site that not only gives users a great web experience, but also the necessary information to turn web visitors into new (or repeat) customers. With marketing budgets being tightened (or cut) for many businesses today, a business web site needs to work harder than ever to market the company and deliver results. But what if the site doesn’t get enough visitors? What if it’s not driving new traffic, or not showing up in the search engines, or if visitors click away from the site as soon as they land on it?

Unfortunately for many small businesses, it’s a common situation that’s not only frustrating, but can be costly as well. No one wants to invest in a great web site only to have it underperform once it’s live on the web! So to help you avoid this situation with your small business web site, here are some things you can do to promote your site, drive more traffic, improve search engine rankings, and help your web site work harder for your business!

- Search Engine Optimization – Of course, this is the best move you can make to get better results out of your web site. It’s critical that your site is correctly optimized for the search engines, because without it there’s little chance that your site will ever be found among the millions of sites that are already optimized and ranking well in the search results.

- Sitemaps & Robot Files – Robot files (robots.txt) are the first files that search engine spiders look for when they visit the root directory of your site. They act as an invitation to the places on your site that should be read and indexed, and identifies which places are off-limits. Sitemap files in both HTML and XML formats supply additional information to the search engine spiders by showing them the appropriate links to follow, and providing them with a clear path through all the pages of your web site.

- Link Building – Up to 75% of your site’s ranking in Google can be attributed to the inbound links that point to your site from other reliable sites on the web. Be careful, though – Google has been known to penalize sites for purchasing links (paid linking) or for being listed on link farms or spammy sites that are little more than page after page of links. Stick with quality sites that are relevant to yours and have reliable content and good page rank.

- Press Releases – In addition to publicizing your company’s news and events, press releases (especially the online type) are a great way to get inbound links to your site from other credible web sites. Just make sure you send out press releases that are formatted to current journalistic standards, are well written, and include links that lead back to your web site.

- Directory Submission – There are many good web directories available, both paid and free, that can provide extra exposure for your web site and also provide you with additional inbound links. Make sure you list your web site in the most relevant category possible, and stick with the well-known, reputable directories only.

- E-Marketing – Sending out e-campaigns to your subscriber list is another great way to spread the word about your web site. Add your URL to the header or footer area of all email pieces that you send, and also include a separate promo or “write-up” that encourages readers to visit the site. Make sure to keep adding new content to your site, and let subscribers know when you’ve added new information as well.

- Landing Pages – When promoting your site in marketing pieces or advertisements, don’t always send your visitors just to your home page. Instead, consider creating separate landing pages that are specifically written to match the content of each marketing piece. For instance, if you placed an ad for a Thanksgiving Sale, create a special Thanksgiving Sale page on your web site that corresponds to the ad content (but also includes links to explore the rest of your web site as well).

After spending so much time, effort, and money on creating or updating a web site for your small business, make sure you give it a fighting chance to deliver great results. By promoting your site you not only help build up a web presence, but you also help create some additional buzz about your company that can help boost your overall marketing results as well. Your web site is a major asset in your marketing efforts and in your business, so make sure it gets the traffic, the rankings, and the attention that it deserves!